God at the Center
We just keep taking huge leaps through the Hebrew scriptures. Last week we explored the story of Ruth, set in the time of judges. And it is important I think for us to understand how the Israelites moved from the time of judges to the time of having a human King.
At the time the judges arose, the people of God - the tribes of Israel - understood God as their leader, the center of their religious, familial, civil, and economic life.
As society grew and evolved, as different political and economic powers rose or fell, the people of God occasionally needed human leaders to navigate the world. And so judges rose up to lead…and then their leadership would wane until another judge was needed.
But as surrounding societies, who did not know God as their leader, grew and gained power, the tribes of Israel became disappointed with the model of judges. They began to clamor for a human king in order to be more like their neighbors and opponents.
In 1 Samuel 8, God conceded to the people’s complaints, but first instructed Samuel to warn the people about what a king would be like.
“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties… He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves and the best of your cattle and donkeys and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves...”
And in spite of all of that, the people insisted on a king. So God instructed Samuel give them a king.
Samuel anointed Saul…and Saul turned out to be all that Samuel described to the people. As Saul failed miserably, God sent Samuel to Bethlehem to find Jesse because God was going to choose one of Jesse’s sons to be anointed as the next king. That son was David.
Some of us know the big outline of David’s story. He was the youngest son of Jesse (who was born of Obed, son of Ruth and Boaz). As the youngest, David was the last one Samuel expected to be God’s choice. Ruddy and handsome with beautiful eyes, David was a shepherd. Samuel did as God instructed and anointed David. But at that moment David was anointed by Samuel, Saul was still king.
The text says that the spirit of the Lord left Saul (presumably because the Lord had now chosen David) and as a result, Saul was tortured by evil spirits. Saul called for a skilled musician who could play beautifully to soothe his soul. His servants brought him none other thant the shepherd boy, David. When David played music for Saul, Saul could rest easy.
Because he helped Saul so, King Saul made David his armor bearer, and as Saul entered into a battle with the Philistines, David snuck near the battlefield. Soon David was dressed in Saul’s armor with a pouch full of stones, prepared to slay the Philistine Goliath.
The David we meet in these stories can be attractive. He is musical. He is brave. He is God’s chosen.
Now we can skip forward a bit and get to today’s text. In 2 Samuel 5, David has been the King at Hebron, and he’s been a cunning and fierce warrior, and now the Israelites from the north come to him, asking him to be their king as well. The people made a covenant with David – a covenant is a mutual set of commitments between two parties. We don’t know what the people have promised David nor what David has promised the people, but with a covenant between them, David was anointed King over the tribes in the North. His kingship united the twelve tribes of Israel under a single leader.
As king, David captured Jerusalem to make it the center of his Kingdom. In chapter 6, we read about David moving the Ark of the Covenant – understood as the holy seat of God – into the new capital city. He marched with 30,000 men – presumably his military troops. He demonstrated great zeal, dancing before the Ark as it moved.
I was raised with mostly rosy stories about David. Maybe you were too. He may have a rosy glow in our collective memory. But if you read across ALL of David’s story, he isn’t always the greatest person all the time. He is also greedy, lustful, violent.
And really, aren’t all humans often both the good and the bad? Isn’t that the human condition?
So with a wider lens on the ins and outs of David’s character, I wonder whether this fanfare of placing the Ark in the center of the kingdom is authentic. Is this a demonstration of how he will put God at the center of his leadership? Are the people of Israel going to live day in and day out as if God is at the center of their lives?
Or…maybe all of this is political theatre to gain trust and respect. I mean, 30,000 men parading with the Ark sounds a bit like a military parade, doesn’t it?
We don’t really know David’s motivation. I think all of David’s story in scripture can be read with good questions about his character. Reading with more sympathetic eyes, maybe he really was zealous about God being present at the center. And maybe that zealousness played out with a big parade.
The story continues with a demonstration of God’s power. As the Ark is moved, poor Uzzah reached out his hand to steady it and was struck dead. Just like that.
One interpretation of this is that Uzzah acted as if he, a mere human, could protect almighty God. Another interpretation is that the sheer God energy that surrounded the Ark was so great that one couldn’t survive touching it – like a high voltage electrocution. (I feel like that is some of the plot action in Raiders of the Lost Ark, right?) Again, we don’t really know. It’s a text that we have to interpret. One way or another, it seems that God is not to be trifled with.
David, angry about God’s wrath, decided to end the parade and park the Ark someplace outside of the Jerusalem for a while. But when the place that housed the Ark for that time encountered great blessing, David once again moved the Ark toward Jerusalem.
This time, David offered a sacrifice as the Ark is moved. This time, David wore a linen ephod, which would have been associated with priestly activities. This time there was an air of reverence and respect. While it is still a dancing occasion, there was a different reverent order about it.
Perhaps David realized that God’s presence has consequences. Perhaps David realized that God’s presence requires a different kind of work. And perhaps David realized that God’s presence is more than a political statement.
This week someone asked me why I haven’t been preaching about Jesus the last few weeks. And if one person has that question and speaks it aloud, I assume others have it too. My first reaction is that we learn something about Jesus in all of the scripture we study, based on the Christian lenses we wear – but let me be specific about today’s text.
We believe that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. As a fully human middle eastern man, he was a child born into King David’s family line – Luke’s gospel even goes so far as to refer to Bethlehem, Jesus’ birthplace, as the City of David, a reference which elsewhere exclusively refers to Jerusalem.
I assume that for most of us, our lineage shapes our life in some way. For example, I was born to parents born in the depression era. As a result, I learned to cook frugally, to grow my own vegetables, to can and to freeze, to be thrifty in the kitchen. We have a woodcut in our kitchen with the Theodore Roosevelt quote, “Do what you can with what you have where you are.” And that was a gift to my husband by my SON…who lives that same way because he has been shaped by his lineage.
So at that level, knowing about King David, knowing David as the king who united the 12 tribes of Israel for a season, as the leader who placed God in the center of the Kingdom, as the leader who, even though very thoroughly flawed, was known for his prayers to and praise of God feels like good information to undergird Jesus the human.
Jesus was born into a Jewish society that had specific expectation about who the Messiah would be. Some of those expectations were based on prophecies that the messiah would come from David’s line.
By many accounts, Jesus did not meet many of those societal expectations.
It occurred to me this week that his work of putting God at the center didn’t resemble David’s at all. David demonstrated across the ups and downs of his lifetime how hard it is for a human to serve God in the midst of human greed, human hunger for power, human longing.
Jesus certainly didn’t enter into Jerusalem with 30,000 men dancing before a wooden seat for God. He did enter Jerusalem in deep relationship with the God he called Abba, Father to waving palms and shouts of Hosanna!
For Jesus, putting God at the center was relational. For Jesus, putting God at the center was about inclusion. For Jesus, putting God at the center was about loving neighbor.
We center God when we make time to leave the chaos of the world to pray. We center God when we seek to put what we have to use for the greater good. Whether that is our talents, our time and our material possessions or our 5 acres of property on Montrose Road. We center God when we seek to know God in our own lives, when we seek to share what we know by seeking justice, kindness and mercy. We center God when we show up to worship with thanksgiving and praise for all that God has done, is doing, will do.
Today’s story, in many ways, tells the truth about broken humanity, about power, about leadership – the good and the bad. And we can hold this story as part of the big story of God the Father and Jesus the Son and of the Holy Spirit sent as advocate. Will you sit with that each week?
And…
How will YOU put God at the center of your life? Each day?
How will WE put God at the center of OUR life as the community of Faith? Not just here in worship and prayer, but in service, in witness, in presence?
(Create time for silence)
May it be so.
Amen.
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